From the 1960s-1980s recipe box of a midwestern grandma.

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons butter or oleo *

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs**

3 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 clove garlic, mashed

1/4 cup minced onions

1 pound ground chuck

2 medium eggplants: about six cups, pared and cut into 1” cubes

1 1/2 teaspoon salt and dash of pepper***

1 cup tomato soup (undiluted)****

1 cup evaporated milk (undiluted)*****

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt 2 tsp butter in skillet; toss with crumbs. Set aside on waxed paper.

In the same [now-empty but hot] skillet, add 3 tablespoons margarine and lightly brown garlic, onions, and meat. Drain.

Add eggplant, salt, and pepper to drained meat mixture. Cook on low heat for 10 minutes.

Stir in soup and milk.

Pour into 2 quart casserole and top with buttered crumbs.

Bake 25-35 minutes or until crumbs are browned.

Notes:

*We’ve discussed this.

**Fresh bread crumbs seem weird. Like, isn’t the whole point of bread crumbs to be kinda dry and crumbly, a use for “day old” bread; you know, like stuffing. Or French toast. Or croutons. I feel like “fresh bread crumbs” in, say, 1970s/1980s grandma speak would equal “torn up Wonder bread.” And that would turn only into a gummy sort of sticky white bread paste; like, not crumb texture at all.

***As ever, unless it’s non-casserole baking, who in the world is measuring the salt and pepper? (Though, LOL, it’s one of the few recipe cards without a specific measurement for the pepper.)

****This one is crazy. Most condensed soups (like tomato) are sold in 10.5 ounce cans. (I think this was true even way back but I totally could be wrong.) So, was grandma scooping out most of a can of tomato soup and then saving or tossing 2.5 ounces? Like, what a pain in the ass. Just dump the whole can in. It’s a casserole. You can’t actually screw it up, really.

*****Okay, see above. Except this one is worse. Your garden variety brand of evaporated milk is sold in 12 ounce cans (like our lord and savior, no disrespect) Diet Coke. So grandma was measuring and saving/tossing 4 ounces? Wasteful, weird. Dump the whole can in; spend more time on the old-bread bread crumbs. The 60s-80s housewives were a little weird. Again, just dump the shit in there. It’s a casserole. You cannot screw that shit up.

Separate special note from a granddaughter: It seems like this is a “green bean casserole” situation where those french-fried onions would also work here. Unmeasured, of course. Half in to bake; half on top to finish.

Super special notes about our friend, the eggplant, also known as aubergine:

When eggplants were introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages, they were sometimes called “mad apples” (see Albertus Magnus) and considered to induce madness. Which is quite fun because wild eggplant (Solanum incanum) were once known as Solanum Insanum. The Italian for “eggplant” is “melanzana” and people believed that it was derivative of “mela insana” (mad apple). Also, eggplants are in the nightshade family, which is also the reason people kind of avoided them.

Extra fun fact: Europeans of the Middle Ages, once they decided to start eating the voluptuous aubergines, began to consider them aphrodisiacs.

In some Asian cultures, there is a proverb: “Don’t let your daughter-in-law eat autumn eggplants.” Probably sound advice, I guess. And don’t they ripen in summer, anyway?

Myself, the grand-daughter, I am partial to eggplant sandwiches that pretend to be ham/cheeseburgers in the same way I love portabello/portabella mushroom sandwiches that also pretend to be “meaty” sandwiches. I get a little wary because seeds/skin in some preparations can be mildly toxic (nightshade) but mostly because if you cut it wrong, pick the wrong one, or just choose the wrong slice it can get weirdly spongy and woody at the same time, like an overgrown zucchini.

But at any rate, as far as midwestern casseroles made with less than astoundingly popular vegetables go, this one actually sounds like something I would maybe enjoy.

But not with “fresh” white bread breadcrumbs. Alas, grand-daughter is an insufferable snob.

Two incredible articles about the eggplant (please check them out):

Eggplant, An Origin Story (link)

A Complete History of Eggplant Part 1: Where Did Eggplant Come From? — The Story of Its Origins and Arrival in Japan (link)